Okay, coffee HAS to FOLLOW practice. Even if it’s home practice and you think you don’t care about barfing at home. Because in the end, you don’t barf, but the feeling of wanting to during ustrasana and kapotasana is a real buzz kill. Please, Karen! Please try to remember!

Geez. These lessons I keep trying to teach myself.

I hope I listen.

Practicing at home is a delight. Mucho instructive. Quiet, contemplative. I can hear my thoughts really loudly. “No!” as I started dropping back into kapotasana. Wow, I thought, that was really loud.

I’m always fascinated by the ongoing, usually subconscious monolog that we all have. I think that’s my big attraction to meditation, that there’s this secret world of inner experience, and it’s so easy to blot it out with external reality.

Okay, so anyhow. Practice was lovely and I got to relax and just be with my self. Which is more and more pleasant the older I get and the more I practice. I wasn’t such good company to myself for many years. And I think that’s common.

Supta kurmasana actually saw me with my feet crossed and one leg creeping up over my head. That’s the beauty of home practice for me: I create my own little projects to pursue. And if I don’t get it today, fine — it’s a reason to come back tomorrow.

Okay, so the trip to NYC was with four other folks from work. A teambuilding experience, because we’re a new, interdepartmental team, created to design and implement some pretty significant product management changes. I’m the odd man out, because I’m a designer. Designers, like engineers, are often the nemeses of product management people.

So I go on the trip, we all have a good time and learn a good deal. I walk away feeling like the team is gelling and all is well.

This morning is the report to the directors. I expect to listen and chime in. Oh no, the lead on the product team looks at me and says “Karen will walk us through our report.” Um, okay. First thought: Sabotage! Second thought: Aw, who cares? Breathe and be mindful and just do this.

Hi Karen
It’s good you’re having the discipline to practice at home when you need to do so. I’ve done that at different times in the last 5 years, sometimes for stretches of a year and a half. It does take discipline. I used to light candles, burn incense, put some meditation music really low, take a shower before practice (and after, naturally) – all rituals to get me in the mood to do the practice. Now since I go to the shala, it’s hard to practice at home when I may need to do so because of a deadline. If I travel for work, though, I will do some asanas, maybe primary up to Marychasna D.

I posted some yoga nuggets I’ve learned from my teachers and some funny musings in my blog today. Hope you can read it . Cheers, Arturo. The address is http://cronyogitect.blogspot.com/